In our latest ‘Tips for unsigned artists’ blog, we’ve put together some of our top Twitter marketing tips.

Hashtags

Hashtags first rose to popularity when Twitter blew up in the late 2000s. They essentially categorise your tweets – if you use #Music in your tweet, it will show up along with every other tweet that has #Music in it.

This can be particularly useful if you look at some of your audiences’ interests. If your main target audience has any common interests, then it could be a really good idea to do some research into hashtags around this topic.

Twitter lists can be useful for a variety of reasons from growing your following to finding new content ideas. One of the most useful Twitter lists to build is a ‘Similar artists’ list.

Start off by putting together a list of any artists that are similar to you. If you can’t think of anybody similar to you, then why not think about what artists your current supporters listen to – aim to include five to ten artists on the list. You could make this either a public or private list depending on who you’ve included.

You can then use this list to have a look at what similar accounts are posting. You can even take some of their content ideas – don’t forget to use relevant hashtags too. For example if they’re posting about an event or a hot industry topic, then why not give your own perspective on it?

You could even use the Buffer Google Chrome extension to schedule your tweet/s for the future. If you have a spare hour then this tool gives you the ability to schedule tweets for the next week or so – you can even use this to post to your other social media channels too.

Follow people

One of the most effective ways to gain new followers is through ‘targeted following’. You can actually use the ‘Similar artists’ Twitter list that we mentioned above to do this really effectively.

From here simply go on each of the artists’ Twitter accounts, then go onto their ‘Followers’ list and follow any relevant accounts. Depending on the popularity of your account, you can expect to receive a follow back rate of around 5-10%. It’s important to note that this growth tactic could have a negative effect on your image though – if you do this too much then you could be seen as a spam account.

Promote!

Once you get the hang of it, Twitter can be such a great platform to promote your music. In our experience it’s a lot easier to create engagement with other accounts on Twitter than on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. People that you’ve never met also seem more willing to retweet your posts than on these other platforms. Therefore it can be very effective to tag any relevant accounts, hashtags or Twitter hours in your promotional posts.

If you have an upcoming track, video or project to release, then you could put together a Twitter campaign with 20-40 promotional posts over the space of a few weeks. Research different industry accounts, hashtags and Twitter hours and make sure to include these in your tweets. You can even re-use some of these tweets across other platforms. Although don’t use all 20-40 posts – it’s okay to do this on Twitter, but you risk overflowing your followers if you do this on any other platforms.

Whilst there’s so much opportunity to promote your music on Twitter, the rule of thumb is that Facebook and Instagram can be more powerful. Therefore if you’re stuck for time, it could be best to focus your efforts in these other areas. Saying that, it really just depends on where your audience is. If a lot of your supporters are on Twitter, then it’s certainly worth investing some time into the platform.

These tips can really have a positive impact on your social media presence, video views and your brand awareness in general. For more blogs like this, why not subscribe to the First Media TV Blog?

Or if you’re wanting someone more experienced to help with any of your music promotion on social media then why not get in touch with us at First Media TV on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram?